What Do the PUWER Regulations Cover? A Guide to the Equipment

PUWER is so broad that the hard part is often working out what it does not cover. If you run machinery or plant, you need to know which bits of kit fall under it, or you risk leaving equipment uninspected and your business exposed. Here is what the PUWER regulations cover, with the most common equipment we examine as clear examples.

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Dumper, covered by PUWER

What Do the PUWER Regulations Cover?

PUWER covers the safe provision, use, maintenance and inspection of work equipment. In practice that means almost any machinery, appliance, tool or installation used at work, from rollers and presses to pallet trucks, dumpers and escalators. If your team uses it to do their job, PUWER almost certainly applies.

The scope is deliberately broad. We carry out PUWER examinations across Berkshire and the surrounding counties, on everything from small workshop machines to heavy site plant.

The Most Common Equipment PUWER Covers

These are the items we are asked to examine most often under PUWER:

• Rollers

• Bearing presses

• Axle stands

• Pallet trucks

• Dumpers

• Escalators

• Crushers

The list is far from exhaustive, but it covers a lot of the kit we see day to day. Here is how each one sits under the regulations.

Roller, covered by PUWER

Rollers

Road and compaction rollers are mobile work equipment, so they fall squarely under PUWER. Our roller inspection checks the controls, guarding and overall safe condition.

Bearing press, covered by PUWER

Bearing Presses

Hydraulic bearing presses generate serious force, which makes guarding and safe operation critical. We carry out bearing press inspection on workshop and garage presses.

Axle stand, covered by PUWER

Axle Stands

Axle stands hold vehicles up while people work beneath them, so a failure is potentially fatal. Our axle stand inspection confirms they are sound and rated for the load.

Pallet truck, covered by PUWER

Pallet Trucks

Manual and powered pallet trucks are everywhere in warehouses and yards. A pallet truck inspection covers the forks, wheels, hydraulics and controls.

Dumper, covered by PUWER

Dumpers

Site dumpers are mobile work equipment used across construction and groundworks. We provide dumper inspection covering steering, brakes, the tipping mechanism and safety devices.

Crusher, covered by PUWER

Crushers

Crushing and recycling machinery carries obvious risks from moving parts and stored energy. We carry out crusher inspection on the plant used across waste and aggregates.

What Counts as Work Equipment Under PUWER?

Work equipment is any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation used at work. As the HSE explains, the scope is extremely wide, which is why the examples above are common cases rather than a complete list.

The simple test is the same every time. If a piece of equipment is used at work, treat it as covered by PUWER until a competent person tells you otherwise.

What PUWER Requires for That Equipment

For anything it covers, PUWER asks that the equipment is suitable for the job, kept in safe condition, used only by trained people, and inspected at suitable intervals by a competent person. The right safety measures, such as guarding and emergency stops, must be in place too.

This is where our thorough examination services come in, confirming each piece of equipment is genuinely safe to use and giving you a record to prove it.

In South England? Request an exact quote for PUWER inspection ➜

Equipment That Falls Under Other Rules Too

A lot of kit is caught by more than one set of regulations. Lifting equipment also falls under LOLER, pressure systems under PSSR, and local exhaust ventilation under the COSHH rules.

PUWER is the general baseline that sits underneath them all. Where one of these more specific schemes applies, the equipment usually needs both, not one or the other.

The Bottom Line on What PUWER Covers

PUWER covers a huge range of work equipment, and the seven examples above are just the ones we see most often. The thread running through all of them is simple: they are used at work, and they can hurt someone if they fail.

If you are unsure whether a particular machine is covered, the safest assumption is that it is. Getting it inspected by a competent person settles the question and keeps your people safe in the process.